I noticed three problem areas when doing these puzzles in the morning. I attempt to do them as quickly as possible. For my routine, I do a 15 minute round of piano practice followed by a 5 minute round of puzzle solving. I generally do five to six rounds each morning before work giving me 25-30 minutes of chess and 75 to 90 minutes on the piano.

After finishing the set of puzzles from each of the books that I decide to work on that day, I check them. I find that I am missing one out of every twenty to thirty puzzles. These aren't "mate" puzzles but "win material" type puzzles.

What I found out today is that they are all the same type of misses. I am seeing a pattern in all of my misses. Either I move a piece that will put me in check, or I subconciouly don't consider the threat of mate-in-one as an avenue of attack. I was always thinking of trying to find a way to get a double attack going but haven't been thinking about incorporating the threat of mate as one half of a double attack.

Now that I picked up on these two patterns of missing, I am on a roll and on fire. It's not like I couldn't see it, it's just that I wasn't looking for it. I am excited about this self discovery. Maybe more things will fall in line this way.

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